Roaming Free In An RV

After a few days staying in the Houston area, Brad and I headed over to Lake Medina, which is an hour northwest of San Antonio. The first two hours of the drive were good, but then we hit major traffic. There was a bad accident and the police closed down part of the highway. We merged off the highway with the rest of traffic, taking a small backroad to get back onto the highway. Luckily, there weren’t any low clearance bridges we had to worry about, but that detour delayed us an hour.

Once we were back on the highway, it started to rain. Lots of rain. We were about an hour from the campground and we were starving so adding rain to the mix was not fun. I would say 98% of the campgrounds we stay at are right off the highway. Maybe some are a 10 minute drive off the highway but nothing super long. Until now. It was an extra 45 minutes driving on narrow, winding, hilly roads until we reached the isolated campground. It really was off the beaten path.

We stayed at a Thousand Lake campground and with those campgrounds you pick your site. After a drive like that one it really was the last thing we wanted to do. We found a good spot and instead of being greeted by a tarantula like last time, we were greeted by a herd of deer, which is a million times better. The deer must have been really used to humans because they walked right up to us and looked like “don’t you have any food for us”? One night we saw over 20 deer just hanging out by our house!

Texas views

Texas view

The Texas views have changed from flat land to rolling hills and lots of green. We were both surprised at how much the Texas scenery has changed just over the last week. We have seen new tree species and new wildlife, a jack rabbit. It looks exactly like you think-an overgrown rabbit with crazy long ears.

The two adventures we had were going to Austin and San Antonio, which we did back to back. Austin was a 2 hour drive and we got to hang out in the college, kind of hippish town. The University of Texas is there so we walked around the campus and grabbed some lunch. Is anyone a fan of the TV show Friday Night Lights? A lot of the filming of that show was done in Austin, so we drove around and checked out the locations.

Friday Night Lights

The Alamo Freeze was really a Dairy Queen. It is now renovated so there wasn’t anything to see. We drove to the houses of Matt Saracen, Coach, and Tim Riggins. Riggin’s house has his football sign up in the window – so cool and so Riggin’s like. We also went to the high school and checked out the football field. Driving down the road we saw some familiar spots, like the ice cream cone shaped building seen in the opening credits. We were surprised that some locations were a good 10 minutes from each other. Brad and I both love that show so it was really neat to see where some of the filming was done.

The next day we went to San Antonio, home of The Alamo and river walk. The river walk was very cool. It is one story beneath the city and is a system of walking paths that run along the river, winds under bridges, and through restaurants and shops. It was a nice way to walk to the site of the Alamo.

The Alamo is in the middle of the city and upon seeing it, we were surprised that it was much smaller than what we thought it was going to be. We happened to go when a school was taking a field trip so for a Tuesday it was pretty busy. The line wasn’t too long to get in and no photography is allowed inside the Alamo. The building itself is an old mission and inside holds paintings, artifacts, and models showing the history of the fight. Outside, there is a small walking path around a garden and wall timeline of the battle and Texas’s independence.

When Texas was fighting for its independence from Mexico in 1835, a group of Texas volunteer soldiers fought at the Alamo, including the famous Davy Crockett. Though the Mexican forces outnumbered the Texans, they fought hard and held strong. The Mexican invaders overpowered them 13 days into the battle, killing them all. The Alamo become a symbol of heroism and a year later Texas won its independence.

I tell you, if school history classes had taken place at sites like the Alamo, it would have been much more interesting! I feel like I am relearning all of U.S. history from the traveling we have done, and I have gained a new appreciation for history. It’s pretty awesome

We are off to a new state for both of us, New Mexico!

Till then!